Man to face June vehicular assault trial

Steamboat Springs  A Craig man will face trial in June despite his attorney's efforts to have the charges against him dismissed.

Fifty-three-year-old Wesley Romans faces vehicular assault charges. Romans was arrested in November on suspicion of vehicular assault and aggravated driving after revocation after he allegedly collided head-on with a car one mile west of Hayden on U.S. Highway 40. Court documents indicate Romans' license had been revoked at the time of the accident.

Romans stood trial May 4 on the aggravated driving after revocation charges. That trial ended in a mistrial because one of Deputy District Attorney Jay Cranmer's witnesses, Colorado State Patrol Trooper Kirk Gard--ner, mentioned injuries that were sustained by people riding in the car Romans hit. District Judge Michael O'Hara had previously told Cranmer and Assistant District Attorney Kerry St. James, who was assisting Cranmer, that neither prosecutor could bring up the injuries because the injuries did not relate to the driving while license revoked charge.

On Wednesday, defense attor--ney Ron Smith argued that O'Hara should dismiss the other charges against Romans because of Cranmer's mistake in the May 4 trial, Cranmer's first as a prosecutor.

But Gardner told O'Hara on Wednesday that he was responsible for the mistake.

"I inadvertently introduced (the statement)," Gardner said. "I in no way meant to inflame the jury. I was simply telling the jury what dispatch had told me about the accident on the phone."

After nearly two hours of testimony and argument, O'Hara told the court he would have had to find the District Attorney's Office guilty of some sort of misconduct in order to dismiss the charges against Romans.